The Abbey of Vezzolano, the Romanesque Cloister Hidden in the Monferrato

There are places that mass tourism simply forgets. The Abbey of Vezzolano is one of them: it rises in a fold of the hills of the Astigiano Monferrato, in a hamlet of the small municipality of Albugnano, and yet it stays far from the flows that crowd Piedmont's great destinations. To reach it you leave the main road, turn onto narrow lanes between vineyards and woods, and suddenly, at the bottom of a hollow, the façade appears with its alternating bands of sandstone and brick.

History of the Abbey

It is one of the most important medieval monuments in Piedmont, and almost no one knows it. The church in its present form was built starting from the second half of the twelfth century and completed by the beginning of the thirteenth; the rest of the complex, cloister and chapter house included, was finished in the following centuries. The style straddles Romanesque and Gothic, with that two-tone play of pale stone and brick that dialogues with other Italian traditions.

The Rood Screen and the Cloister

Inside, the most celebrated object is the rood screen, the sculpted partition that separated the space of the clergy from that of the faithful. Its polychrome bas-relief, on two registers, tells of the Dormition and the Assumption of the Virgin and, in the lower register, the array of patriarchs, Mary's ancestors, and dates from the third decade of the thirteenth century. A few metres further on, the cloister: the western side is the oldest, from the late twelfth century, while along the walls frescoes remain, including the famous Legend of the Three Living and the Three Dead.

The beauty of Vezzolano is that you experience it without haste and without crowds. You can sit in the cloister listening to the wind, walk the trails that surround it, stop in one of the small villages of the Albugnanese. No tour buses, no queues: only an abbey and its hills.

How to Visit It

A few pointers for visiting it with respect. The hours are limited and change with the seasons, so it's worth checking them before setting out; better to arrive by car calmly, park where indicated and move around on foot. Support the local businesses, buy wine and local products, and leave the place as you found it: this is how destinations like this stay alive without being consumed.

Related guides: Hidden Piedmont: villages off the beaten track between the Occitan valleys and Monferrato · Alternative to Lake Como: the romantic and peaceful lakes of northern Italy · The most beautiful abbeys in Italy to visit, region by region.

How to Get There

The Abbey of Santa Maria di Vezzolano lies in the Astigiano Monferrato, just over a kilometre from Albugnano, and is reached almost exclusively by car: from the A21 motorway take the Villanova d'Asti exit, continuing toward Castelnuovo Don Bosco and Albugnano, or from the A4 take the Chivasso Est exit toward Casalborgone. Near the entrance there's a large free car park, from which a short walk leads to the abbey. The reference airport is Turin-Caselle.

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